"Enough!" Bolan ordered, his own eyes dark. He glared at his brother. "If we don't finish what we came here to do, there'll be even more blood shed."
"Sometimes I wonder…" Johnny said.
"What, Johnny?" Mack said.
"I wonder about your feelings, that's all."
Bolan turned off Samuel and onto Ben Yahuda, heading for the coast road and Acco. "So be it," he said, surprised at Johnny's words, but conceding that perhaps Johnny wasn't thinking straight because of the abuse he had suffered.
They made the drive in silence, Bolan alert to the many army patrols they were passing. Yeah, he had feelings that ran so deep they threatened to drown him sometimes. But he needed to prove nothing to his brother or anybody else. A soldier couldn't surrender to self-pity and sympathy until the job was completed.
A savvy warrior couldn't afford to let any other emotions cloud his sense for war. He had to remain sharp, alert. He had to kill with precision or die himself. It was that complicated and that simple. If Johnny couldn't understand that about him after all this time, it was something he'd simply have to live with.
It was two in the afternoon when they arrived in Acre. Everything was quiet. In times like these, the Muslim population stayed off the streets, lest they get caught in the cross fire between the government and the terrorists whose feelings they didn't share.
Bolan drove down the narrow street, parking in front of the bar where they had rented the room. "Wait here," he told Johnny, as he moved to look in the front door.
The place was empty except for Braxis, the owner, who was sweeping up.
Bolan returned to the car, making sure no one was watching them before helping his brother out and hustling him into the bar. Then he hurried back to retrieve the duffel from the trunk, joining Johnny inside.
Braxis looked at them, his face darkening. "What kind of trouble do you bring me?" he asked harshly.
Bolan kept moving toward the stairs. "The kind I'll pay well to keep secret," he said.
"How well?" Braxis had laid his broom aside and was checking out the windows.
"A thousand dollars American," Bolan said, starting up the stairs.
Braxis locked the door and put out the Closed sign. "A thousand dollars will buy you one more night, no more." The man started pulling down window shades.
"One more night's all I need," Bolan said. "Can you help us get medical supplies?"
Braxis rubbed his stubbled chin, a smile slowly creeping onto his face. "For two hundred American dollars I can."
Bolan mustered a smile. "Fair enough. Come up when you're ready and knock three times."
Bolan eased Johnny onto the bed, then locked the door behind them. He went immediately to the duffels for artillery. His MAC-10 was lost to Abba's people. He replaced the MAC-10s from the duffels, shoving straight 9 mm clips behind the trigger guards. For a side arm, he took out a sleek Wilkinson Linda 9 mm, dropping on the bed the folding stock and 16 1/2-inch barrel that converted it to a carbine.
Johnny studied his brother from the bed. "Is it all over?"
"It's just beginning," Bolan said. "Tonight I take care of the rest of that scum."
There were three short knocks on the door. Bolan jumped, the pistol in his hands. "Yeah?" he said.
"It's me, Braxis," came the muffled reply. "I bring what you asked for."
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
Bolan moved to the door, snapping open the lock and flattening himself against the wall, the Linda up and ready.
The door swung open. Braxis was standing there with towels on his shoulders and a basin filled with steaming water in his hands. A small bag of supplies hung from his arm.
He stepped in, raising his eyebrows when he saw the weapons. "I saw your picture on television," he said.
Bolan motioned him in. The man walked to the window casement to set down the water. "It wasn't me," Bolan said. "You must be mistaken."
Braxis turned and looked at him blankly. "You owe me $1,200. American," he said.
"I want to watch your television," Bolan said.
"One hundred dollars," Braxis smiled, holding out an open palm. "In advance."
Bolan returned to the duffel, producing a wad of bills. "More than enough," he said, handing the stack to Braxis. "Keep the change."
The man's eyes brightened, and he hurried out of the room for the television, returning with it in less than a minute.
"Food," Bolan said, taking the set. "Leave it by the door in the hall."
Braxis hurried out. This time he didn't ask for any more money.
"This place is dangerous," Johnny said.
"I don't like it either," Mack replied, hooking up the TV to a portable generator in the corner. "'Though I don't think we'll be here much longer."
"We've got to rest, Mack."
"Tomorrow," Bolan said, and began washing up as the television came on.
News reports filled the Israeli channels. The reports were in Hebrew, so they couldn't understand a word, but the pictures told it all: the newsreel footage of the occupation of Rosh Hanikra, complete with shots of a shy Tomasso Metrano, scenes of the firefight at the Kfar Baruch Reservoir, the destruction of the firehouse, ending with the slaughter of innocents in Tel Aviv. All these shots were interspersed with pictures of Mack Bolan straight from the Interpol files.
The connections they had made to tie him with the terrorism were logical, though flawed. He was in the process of becoming an outlaw in another country. At that moment, he was probably the most wanted man in Israel.
He stared at his face in a cracked mirror hanging on the wall. His Arab makeup was long gone, washed away by blood and abuse. The swelling had gone down somewhat, but he could still barely recognize himself. The change had probably helped get him through the army patrols.
Methodically, he set about cleaning and dressing their wounds, his own body a mass of pain. Undoubtedly, the pain kept him from passing out from exhaustion. In that, it was his closest friend, for he had no intention of sleeping — not yet.
He worked on Johnny first, applying medicine and field dressings like an expert. "Where do you go from here, Mack?" Johnny asked, as a long cut on his arm was bandaged.
The word "you" was not lost on Bolan. "Jerusalem," he said.
"What's there?"
"The old city," Bolan replied, "King David's city. Abba and his… associates intend to destroy the Western Wall tonight."
"What!"
Bolan nodded. "The holiest place on earth for the Jews."
The Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall, is all that remains of King Solomon's temple, which had once housed the Ark of the Covenant. The wall is massive, the foundation stones laid nearly three thousand years ago. Jews from all over the world go to pray at the wall, leaving their prayers in the form of messages stuffed into the cracks. It is the symbol of all that it means to be Jewish, an undying link to the Jews' antiquity and their hopes for the future. It is the heart and soul of a people. It is everything. Its destruction would be an irreparable blow.
"You must tell someone about this, Mack," Johnny said.
The Executioner had gone to work on himself, starting with his battered face. "No," he said. "This one's mine."
"Sabra, at least, has a right to know."
"Especially not Sabra," Mack said. "You saw the films of the fight at the reservoir. They should have gone in kicking. Instead, they lost most of their people. I can't take any more orders. I must be free to run."
"I don't accept that."
Mack stopped his ministrations and looked at his brother. "I know you don't," he said softly.
"Mack," Johnny said. "What happened back there in Tel Aviv… it was all our fault."
"Was it? We didn't raise Abba and his kind on vicious hatred. We didn't put the guns in their hands. They'd be doing this whether we were here or not."
Johnny got up and went to the door. A tray of food sat in the hall. He brought it in and closed the door. "I've los
t my belly for this kind of war," he said at last. "I can't do it anymore."
Mack nodded. "I understand," he said, and meant it. "We have to live our own lives as we see fit. I respect your decision. In fact, I'm pleased."
"I… I'm sorry, Mack."
"Yeah, kid," the Executioner said. "Me, too."
"You've got to promise me two things," he said. "First, don't blow what little security we have here by revealing where you are. Second, no one is to know what's happening tonight. Let me handle it. Abba's people are the only group left alive out there. I can take care of them."
Johnny stared at him for a moment. "Okay," he said finally. "You have my word."
"I guess that's it, then," Bolan said.
"Yeah, I guess so."
The Executioner finished his medical work in silence, his mind turning as much as possible to the job at hand. But one little crack had been opened, one small fissure in his rock-solid control.
He was alone.
Again.
20
Israelis all have a sense of history, of place. It is absolutely necessary to their survival as a people. This was no more evident to Mack Bolan than when he made the drive along Highway 40 to the interior city of Jerusalem.
The rolling hills of the Holy Land were dotted everywhere with the hulks of dead army vehicles that had been spray-painted and left as monuments for a culture that had to fight every day of its life simply to exist.
During the 1948 war, Jerusalem was blocked to Jews, the roads connecting the city with the rest of Israel sealed off so the people of Israel could not reach their holy place.
After some fighting in 1949, the Jews held the New City sector of Jerusalem. When the Egyptians and Syrians massed in 1967 to completely destroy the small country, the Israelis struck back hard, driving off the attackers, winning the war in just six days. Their bonus was the Old City. They retook it, David's city, their city. The military vehicles were a remnant of that campaign, a reminder of just how tenuous is their hold on all that is dear to them.
A reminder to be vigilant. A reminder that sometimes one has to fight. The Jews are the only surviving culture from antiquity. They survived for eighteen hundred years living nonviolently, but for eighteen hundred years they were a people without a country. Not until the Warsaw Ghetto did Jews pick up arms and fight, not until after Hitler's Holocaust and the death of six million did the Jews say, "No more."
And after that, they were unstoppable. The British held Palestine as a mandate and put immigrating Jews into camps on Cyprus. But, unstoppable, they came. They came the same way Mack and Johnny Bolan had come, by sea, in small boats. They came for the Wailing Wall and to occupy the land that had been theirs as long as memory existed.
And when the world realized that they wouldn't go away quietly, the world gave in. The United Nations partitioned the land into two countries, Israel and Jordan — Israel a Jewish state, Jordan an Arab state.
Israel is surrounded on all sides by hostile nations who want it dead. Those were the kind of odds Mack Bolan could appreciate.
Bolan drove slowly, leisurely. He had plenty of time before sunset, before his preordained confrontation with Abba.
Ever since he had stood in the church watching the wedding ceremony of Tomasso Metrano's daughter, he had wondered about the reasons for his own existence.
He knew he no longer had a life of his own. There was certainly no pleasure in the way he lived. He thrilled to the battle, but probably because it was the closest thing to emotion he was capable of. He took no joy from the killing, he knew that. Life, all life, was still precious to him — except for the life of the vermin he exterminated.
Was he like them, the ones he hunted? He searched his soul, but could find no answers. He had tried to break the cycle of death before, but the attempt had ended in failure at Stony Man Farm with the death of the woman he loved. April Rose was gone, sure, but she still lived vividly in his memory.
He had thrown himself into his missions with increasing ardor since, always pushing the odds.
Now Johnny had decided to go his own way, rejecting Bolan's crusade. He had given again, had dragged his heart out of its hiding place to be torn apart again. He didn't know if he could stand it this time.
"Damn."
An army patrol had blockaded the road a quarter mile ahead and was checking each car as it went through. He got behind a line of twenty or so cars and waited his turn.
He looked around him; extremely rocky terrain surrounded the road on all sides for about twenty yards, then climbed to sheer cliffs one hundred feet high.
Other cars were already beginning to get in line behind him. He could try to turn around and go back the way he had come, but it wouldn't leave him in any better shape. He'd still have to go through a checkpoint somewhere.
He looked at the car. Its interior was bloodstained and smelled acrid. The duffel lay on the front floor, filled with machinery of war. He was in worse shape. His face was cut and bruised, still swollen more than any makeup could help. He had no papers. There was no possible way he could bluff his way through the roadblock.
Another car eased through, then another, bringing him closer to the inevitable. His mind raced, and kept coming back to the same point: suppose he just gave up? Suppose he simply breathed out, raised his hands and let them take him? The solitude of that, the peace of it, appealed to him. He was tired and emotionally worn down.
The loss of Johnny had been a paralyzing blow to him. God damn, he deserved a life as much as anybody — the impossibility of having one was nearly maddening. He was glad his brother had had the sense to chuck this struggle. But now Bolan was alone again. Johnny and April — their faces whirled through his mind. Had he gone too far? Had he crossed the line separating humanity and the animals, the Metranos, of this world?
He was one car away from the checkpoint. Already several of the soldiers were squinting, trying to get a look into his car from a distance.
He couldn't fight it out; he was on their side. The trouble was, they didn't know that. The car in front was waved on through the roadblock, and a sergeant was motioning him up to the line.
He put the Fiat in gear and eased up to the blockade. It consisted of three armored carriers, two straddling the roadway, another pulled off on the shoulder. Several yards beyond that, an American jeep with a 50-caliber machine gun mounted on the back was parked directly in the center of the road. When someone was passed, a soldier would reverse the truck off the road and let them through. Then he'd pull it back.
Ten soldiers stood around smoking cigarettes and talking, and until the sergeant actually walked up to the window and motioned it down, Bolan had no idea of what he was going to do.
He rolled the window a third of the way down. He had never given up, ever. If this was to be his end, he'd go out like the fighter he was. He'd get it up for one more fight. Whatever will drove him, whatever war god, he would call on it again.
The sergeant spoke to him in Hebrew.
"American," he replied. "I don't understand."
"Your passport," the man said in English. "I'll need your papers."
"Sure," Bolan said, and began fumbling around in his pockets. "Here somewhere."
"You will hurry, please."
"Yeah, yeah, just a minute."
The man was reaching partway through the window, fingers wiggling impatiently — just as Bolan had hoped. He suddenly cranked the window, rolling the man's arm up tight.
Without thought, he pushed open the door, knocking the man against the hood of the car. He grabbed his duffel and ran.
He had reached the trucks before anyone could react. He jumped to the hood of one and was staring at the astonished face of the young warrior within. A second later he was over the truck, the sounds of running and shouting behind him.
He was ten feet from the jeep, its driver turning to level an Uzi at him. He heaved the duffel at the man's head, forcing him to duck, then covered the last few feet on a dead run, goin
g up the back of the open jeep to jump on the driver.
With no time to fight, he slammed the palms of his hands on the man's ears, immediate disorientation slackening the man's face as he tumbled from the driver's seat.
The Executioner turned to the machine gun. Gunfire was rumbling as he snapped the bolt and raked the carriers, driving resistance to the ground. Then he went for tires, disabling all three vehicles with one long burst, brass casings tinkling onto the cement roadway.
As the carriers sagged like dying animals, Bolan jumped into the driver's seat and started the jeep. He took off in a hail of gunfire, his windows shattering, then the seat beside him. But within thirty seconds he had distanced himself.
This wouldn't go for long. He opened up the jeep, but didn't get much out of it. Within a couple of miles he caught up to a Toyota carrying a family.
He overtook them. When he got around a curve, he skidded to a halt, then turned to block the roadway.
The Toyota made the curve. The driver slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting the jeep. Bolan stood in the rear, manning the machine gun.
"Get out of the car!" he ordered.
The people within, two adults and three children, looked horrified, the man turning his head from side to side. The Executioner couldn't give them time to think.
He fired beside the car, the roadway churning in flying chunks of cement. "Get out of the car!"
They got out quickly, hands in the air. Bolan hated himself for scaring them, but determination kept him going. "Get off the road," he said. "Run, quickly!"
They ran.
He jumped from the jeep and hurried to the Toyota. It was still running and had a full tank of gas. He climbed in and took off.
Several miles later, he passed a convoy of army trucks, all looking for a maniac in a jeep. They passed him without a second look. Several miles after that, he saw settlements, villages carved from stone, built right into the hillsides. And beyond that, a large city sat gleaming in the hot afternoon sun.
Instinctively, he knew it was Jerusalem.
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